IRLE News and Events

IRLE Colloquium Series, Fall 2012

The final presentation for the fall term will be held on Monday, November 19, 12pm – 1pm in the Large Conference Room.

All events are located at the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, 2521 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA. A light lunch will be served. To attend an event: Please RSVP to Myra Armstrong, zulu2@berkeley.edu

Monday, November 19 | 12pm – 1pm

Increases in Earnings Dispersion Across Establishments and
Individuals in the U.S.Richard Freeman, Economics, Harvard University

IRLE is hosting an invitation-only conference that will focus on the many aspects of manufacturing employment both within the United States and abroad. The event is co-sponsored by the Global Metropolitan Studies Center. The program follows below.

NOTE: Attendance is by invitation only, but the event will be recorded and made available in digital formats afterward. Contact Myra Armstrong, zulu2@berkeley.edu, if you are interested in attending.

Rucker Johnson Gives TED Talk

Rucker Johnson (Goldman School of Public Policy) was invited to give a TED talk on his desegregation book project. The title of the presentation is “Desegregation and (Un)Equal Opportunity, TEDx Miami University. The full presentation may be viewed at the following link:

Richard Walker Selected for the 2012 Association of American Geographers Honors Award

IRLE is pleased to congratulate Prof. Walker for this much-deserved recognition. AAG Honors are the highest awards offered by the Association of American Geographers. They are offered annually to recognize outstanding accomplishments by members in research & scholarship, teaching, education, service to the discipline, public service outside academe and for lifetime achievement. Although the AAG and its specialty groups make other important awards (see Grants and Awards), AAG Honors remains among the most prestigious awards in American geography and have been awarded since 1951.

Opponents of raising the federal minimum wage often argue that, while the increase in wages may benefit low-wage workers, it will also increase the cost of food and other basic goods, thus hurting the very people the minimum wage increase is intended to help. In this report, we provide a detailed analysis of the potential increase in food prices of new legislation proposed by Congressmember George Miller (D-CA) and Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) that would increase the minimum wage to $9.80 over a three-year period, as well as increase the tipped minimum wage, which currently stands at $2.13, until it reaches 70% of the full federal minimum. We find that while the Miller/Harkin bill would provide a 33% wage increase for regular minimum wage workers and would more than double the wages of tipped workers over the same period, retail grocery store food prices would only increase by an average of less than half a percent over the three-year phase-in of the new minimum wage, and restaurant food prices would increase by less than one percent per year. This increased cost of food, both away and at home, would amount to about 10 cents more per day on average for American households over the three-year period.

Other News

Ellen Avis, a member of the Labor Center’s “Green Team” working on issues related to jobs in the green economy, has moved on from the Labor Center. We wish Ellen all the best in her new adventures.

California Public Employee Relations

CPER Online Journal

CPER Journal’s December issue (No. 208) will feature an article on changes to the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) that affect retired veterans. Many veterans and reservists are coming home to public employers obligated under the law to reemploy them in a changing economy where positions may no longer exist and questions of seniority, status, pay, and benefits must be answered based on the rights of the returning soldier.

Also in this issue, using several years of data on unemployment and layoffs since the “great recession,” IRLE’s Sylvia Allegretto is writing about the huge negative impact of public sector layoffs on the economy, especially in California.

In 2007, the Firefighters Procedural Bill of Rights Act was signed into law, giving California firefighters many of the same rights as peace officers, and more. Portable, readable, and affordable, the CPER guide provides an overview of the requirements of the act &ndashl a clear explanation of who’s covered and the extent of that coverage; how a disciplinary investigation is started; and what to expect concerning interrogation, privacy, discipline, administrative appeals, remedies, and more.

Mediation continues to be a successful method for resolving labor disputes for public sector employees in California. This pocket guide discusses the various aspects of the mediation process as it applies to public agencies and employees throughout the state. The process differs among public employees depending on the governing statute. The guide outlines those differences and explains how the process typically works.

All guides can be ordered at the CPER website, where tables of contents for all guides appear.

Center for the Study of Child Care Employment

The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) is pleased to announce the receipt of a two-year grant from the Birth to Five Policy Alliance. One project supported by the grant focuses on how best to develop state data systems which include comprehensive and up-to-date data about the professional preparation and development, ethnic and linguistic background, and compensation and tenure of the early care and education workforce. These data will help to identify challenges, track progress, and develop sound policies and investments for improving early childhood jobs. A second project included in the grant involves conducting our “Policy, Politics, and Power for Early Childhood Leaders” training with five state policy advocate teams over the next year– New Mexico, Colorado, Michigan, Nebraska, and Florida. The CSCCE will help each team work more effectively toward common strategies to improve services for children, families and their teachers.

In addition, the CSCCE is pleased to announce that our new tool, Supportive Environmental Quality Underlying Adult Learning (SEQUAL), is currently being validated in 90 child care centers in North Carolina. The SEQUAL is designed to measure early childhood teachers’ perceptions about the adult learning environment in center-based early care and education programs and identifies components of the workplace that enable teachers to engage in good practice and continue to develop their knowledge and skills on the job.

Center for Wage and Employment Dynamics

CWED Co-Chair Michael Reich authored a new CWED policy brief titled “Increasing the Minimum Wage in San Jose: Benefits and Costs.” The paper presents solid research about other jurisdictions that implemented a living wage policy, and how it affected the economy.

Institute for Research on Labor and Employment Library

Intellectual Property Case Affects Scholarly Communications

The long-running lawsuit between the Author’s Guild and HathiTrust, et al, has been decided in favor of the concept of “fair use”–the ability of libraries to make their collections widely available for non-commercial purposes. The court extended the protections of fair use to cover mass digitization, as has been undertaken by Google and others. This decision is momentous, insofar as it preserves broader access to scholarly materials.

The Library and Labor Center Copyright the National Health Care Calculator

The Labor Center has created a calculator that can help individuals assess their health care costs under the Affordable Care Act. The calculator was developed by Labor Center Chair Ken Jacobs and Laurel Lucia, and was then adapted for Web access by Elizabeth del Rocio Camacho. Commercial firms have expressed interest in the calculator, and so we have registered it with the campus Intellectual Property and Industry Research Alliances office. Ownership and royalties shared between the Regents, the host organization, and the 3 authors. It is too soon to forecast the demand for this software, but it will be ready for acquisition if demand grows.

Labor Project for Working Families

LPWF Celebrates 20th Anniversary

Bargaining for Equality, Fighting for Gender Parity

For word of work-family progress on both sides of the globe, see the Fall 2012 issue of LaborFamilyNEWS. From Australia, Prof. Marian Baird shares research showing how bargaining for gender equity is an important first step toward progress in public policy. Gains have been made through maternity leave, caregiver leave, domestic and family violence leave, and pay parity clauses. Closer to home, activists are working for immigration reform to help the 5.2 percent of the U.S. labor force who are undocumented and who contribute to the success and well-being of this country. The uncertainty of their status affects the entire family. The article focuses on the strike by Milwaukee’s Palermo’s Pizza workers, who believe the company used immigration enforcement as a form of intimidation and retaliation.

Also in this issue, Canadian postal workers fight forced overtime and LPWF offers new bargaining fact sheets (see below). The newsletter is available online.

New! Bargaining Fact Sheets

Now available on our website...short and informative fact sheets give a snapshot of the issues to consider when bargaining for work family benefits. Topics include child care, family caregiving, family leave, low-wage worker benefits, paid sick days, paid time off, worker controlled flexibility and federal family leave laws. Each sheet includes pertinent laws, suggested bargaining terms, and links to more detailed information. Click here to see the LPWF fact sheets and other resources.

LPWF...20 Years and Growing

The achievements of the Labor Project are detailed in Celebrating 20 Years, a look at what we’ve accomplished since our founding in 1992. We’ve grown to include an online labor education and resource network; chair and coordinate a pioneering statewide labor-community coalition; increase labor’s voice in local, state, and national efforts to advance family-friendly workplace policies; and work with national advocacy groups and thought leaders on long-term sustainable policies that build the 21st century workplace. And, we are proud that our anniversary coincides with the 10th anniversary of our success in passing California’s landmark Paid Family Leave law – the first of its kind in the nation. Click here to read about this and other Labor Project victories!

CAMPUS EVENTS

Art, Technology and Culture Colloquium
November 19, 2012
7:30-9 p.m.
Sutardja Dai Hall, Banatao Auditorium
"Telesthesia: How Class and Power work in the Post-Internet Age", McKenzie Wark, New School for Social Research

November 16, 2012
"Do Higher Skill-specific Wage Differentials Lead to Less Training in Germany?”, Renate Neubäumer, University of Koblenz-Landau

Center for Studies in Higher Education
November 13, 2012
4:00pm - 5:30pm
768 Evans Hall
“Yes, but did they get a job? Methods for creating an effective system of measuring labor market outcomes in higher education”, Richard W. Moore, California State University, Northridge and Kenneth Chapman, California State University, Northridge

Economics Department

Economics 211, Economic History Seminar
597 Evans Hall
Mondays
2-4pm

November 19, 2012
"Goods, Services, and the Pace of Economic Recovery", Martha Olney, University of California, Berkeley